When there’s a 5th Wednesday in a month, we start with a meditation session and then have a potluck. Please bring something to share – food or drink, or party treats – as your contribution to celebrating community.

Happy New Year, we hope everyone had an enjoyable break. This is our first session of the year in which we will ease back into our meditation practice. We will start off with a quick catch up, followed by our usual meditation session. This will be followed by tea and biscuits.

Seeing as it was the third Wednesday in December and we were getting close to Xmas, Juhana Kokkonen spoke to us from the North Pole on meditation, fiction and Santa Claus. Well, actually he’s in Helsinki – is that close enough?

What are you wanting to escape from? Anxiety? A busy mind? Painful memories? Life, the universe and everything? Novelist, academic and secular Buddhist teacher Winton Higgins Zoomed in from Sydney to speak to us about mindfulness, and whether we can use it as a quick fix.

After a 20 minute meditation, the French secular zen buddhist teacher Martine Batchelor will offering her thoughts on having a regular meditation practice, one with a focus on creative awareness, and respond to questions.

Did you start to meditate and then become a Buddhist, or were you a Buddhist before you started to practice meditation. Do you know why you meditate? And if you have a meditation practice, what goals (if any) do you have? Introduced by Ramsey, everyone is welcome.

On the first Wednesday of each month, Beginners’ Mind offers you a chance to experience a short meditation practice. With the theme being kindness to both yourself and others, Alex Carr will lead us through a loving kindness or metta meditation.

Tonight, One Mindful Breath will be running the eighth of an eight part secular dharma study course titled What is this? and it focuses on two talks – The four great vows and Instruction: waiting and listening – given by Stephen Batchelor at Gaia House, Devon, on 14 and 15 April 2016.

Tonight, One Mindful Breath will be running the seventh of an eight part secular dharma study course titled What is this? and it focuses on the talk Instruction – I don’t know, given by Stephen Batchelor at Gaia House, Devon, on 13 April 2016.

In his discourses, Gotama used a huge number of analogies and similes, and they’ve been used in the various Buddhist traditions to illustrate the teachings. Zooming in from Southampton in the UK, Jim Champion will speak to us on ways we can interpret these metaphors that are closer to our lived experience.

Tonight, One Mindful Breath will be running the sixth of an eight part secular dharma study course titled What is this? and it focuses on two talks – Instruction: What is this? and Good snowflakes: they don‘t fall anywhere else – given by Stephen Batchelor at Gaia House, Devon, on 11 and 12 April 2016.

Tonight, One Mindful Breath will be running the fifth of an eight part secular dharma study course titled What is this? and it focuses on the talk Question and response, given by Stephen Batchelor at Gaia House, Devon, on 10 April 2016.

Tonight, One Mindful Breath will be running the fourth of an eight part secular dharma study course titled What is this? and it focuses on the talk Clearly visible dharma, given by Stephen Batchelor at Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, Massachussets, on 18 November 2015.

Stifling thought, or stilling the mind? What do you think you are doing when you meditate, and what would you find useful? Whether you’re new to meditation, have tried it and felt you were unable to do it ‘properly’, or perhaps you’ve done it for years, you’ll find this session worthwhile.

Tonight, One Mindful Breath will be running the third of an eight part secular dharma study course titled What is this? and it focuses on the talk Enthusiasm – reflections on right effort, given by Stephen Batchelor at Gaia House, Devon, on 21 July 2016.

Tonight, One Mindful Breath will be running the second of an eight part secular dharma study course titled What is this? and it focuses on the talk Confusion – reflections on moha, given by Stephen Batchelor at Gaia House, Devon, on 19 July 2016.

Derek will introduce metta, or loving kindness meditation, a practice in which we develop and cultivate love and compassion for ourself and for all other beings. It helps us soften and open our hearts, and build connection and community with others.

Tonight, One Mindful Breath will be running the first of an eight part secular dharma study course titled What is this? and it focuses on the talk Reactive or responsive, given by Stephen Batchelor at Gaia House, Devon, on 17 July 2016.

Visiting us this Wednesday evening from Barcelona by Zoom, Bernat Font will offer some reflections on social media, which he believes is such an important part of our saeculum and of our daily lives that it should be given a proper – even prominent – place in our practice.

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Gratitude to Nick Hughes for creating this website, to Sotonian Jim ChampionandUnsplash for most of the lovely images, as well as to everyone who’s put a contribution in the box at an event and supports us through Aotearoa Buddhist Education Trust, enabling us to offer the teachings and experience of the practice without a fixed fee.Thanks also to all those who book the rooms, put out the chairs, welcome people, bring tea & bikkies, clear up at the end of a session, answer your texts, calls and emails, look after the community’s funds, take part in our care committee, and so much more. Words and spaces corralled by Ramsey Margolis.